Splitting the house

January 2, 2013

The House delegation from the Northwest split in some uncommon ways on the big tax/budget bill Tuesday – splitting the parties in the region on some not totally expected lines. (See this excellent New York Times map.)

The Senate delegation was united in its vote in favor of the bill, as the Senate overall was lopsidedly in favor.

The House was more deeply split, and unusual in this cycle has featured a bill passing the House with a strong majority of the Republican caucus in opposition. 151 Republicans voted no, almost twice as many as the 85 who voted yes; Democrats basically passed the bill, with 172 in favor and 16 against.

The Northwest delegation, given that kind of split, didn’t vote as you might expect.

Of the seven Republicans in the region’s House delegation, just one voted against the bill – Raul Labrador of the Idaho 1st. All six of the others – Idaho’s Mike Simpson, Oregon’s Greg Walden, and Washington’s Doc Hastings, Cathy McMorris Rodgers, Jaime Herrera Beutler and Dave Reichert – all voted in favor, on the minority side within the Republican caucus. Might it matter that Walden and McMorris Rodgers are in leadership, Simpson is fairly close to leadership (well, presumably, the John Boehner side of what now looks like a split leadership) and Beutler and Richert come from relatively marginal districts?

On the Democratic side, you see an interesting split as well. Most of the Oregon Democrats voted no – Earl Blumenauer, Peter DeFazio and Kurt Schrader – while Suzanne Bonamici in the 1st district voted yes. Washington was more deeply split: Norm Dicks (the senior member of the region’s delegation), Suzan DelBene (the junior member) and Rick Larsen voted yes; but Adam Smith and Jim McDermott voted no. Overall, the Democrats in the region voted 6-3 in favor of the bill, a closer margin than in the caucus overall.

You’ll hear a wide range of explanations for all this in the days ahead.